decidedly dad-like behaviour
by Random Ruth
Summary: "Something came up," Tony says. "I had to make a detour on my way to our lunch meeting. I'm sorry you're gonna miss those bacon sandwiches you like but…" Tony trails off and jerks his thumb, indicating the back seat. Rhodey twists around and jumps. "Holy shit," he says, just shy of shouting it. (In which Tony is late for lunch with Rhodey and there's a good reason for it.)


It's cold. He rubs his hands together, envies the couple at a table nearby with the hot coffees and a chocolate Lab at their feet. Rhodey has been waiting outside the café for twenty minutes when Tony's silver Audi finally pulls up. He waves to the driver—Tony in orange-tinted shades—and is surprised when Tony doesn't switch off the engine and get out. Instead the passenger door window slides down.

"Hey, To—" Rhodey begins to say, but he's cut off by a quiet hiss from Tony. Tony reaches across to push the door open.

"Change of plans," he says quietly—so quietly Rhodey strains to hear him over the murmur of conversation from the café's patrons. "Get in the car."

Frowning, Rhodey does as he's told. His mind is jumping to all sorts of conclusions. Is there a fight? Against aliens or General Ross? Rhodey weighs up the pros and cons and hopes it's aliens.

"Tony, what is going on?" he asks, buckling his seat belt as Tony pushes the button to roll up the window. The warm air in the car is blissful after so long spent outside. He's aware that people are starting to stare at them, but he'd assumed that in the privacy of the car he would be allowed to speak normally but Tony shushes him. "What is going on?" he repeats, lowering his volume. "We're supposed to meet for lunch and then you're twenty minutes late and acting weird and I'm used to a lot of crap, man, but what is this? This is not your usual brand of weird."

Tony pulls out into traffic — Rhodey expects the roar of a powerful engine thanks to Tony's heavy right foot—but no, he drives slow and steady like a grandma. "Dude," is all Rhodey has to say about that.

"Something came up," Tony says softly. "I had to make a detour on my way to our lunch meeting. I'm sorry you're gonna miss those bacon sandwiches you like but…" Tony trails off and jerks his thumb, indicating the back seat.

Rhodey twists around and jumps. "Holy shit," he says, just shy of shouting it.

It's that intern of Tony's—Peter Parker if Rhodey's memory serves. He's fast asleep in the back seat, wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito with only his head visible. There's a sickly hue to his skin. The blanket has some sort of pattern on it and it takes Rhodey a moment too long to see what it is; a cartoon of Thor and lightning trails repeated over and over. The intern's breathing through his mouth, a damp patch of drool darkening the fabric of the blanket next to his chin.

"Tony, what the hell? Why is your sick intern in your car?"

"His school called his aunt who's busy at work so she called me. Nobody's home at their apartment so I'm gonna take care of him at the compound until he's feeling better. It's a chain of responsibility thing we've got going." He says this like it's normal for someone to be this involved in their intern's life. He glances in the rear view mirror and a worried frown appears on his face.

"So you're, what, his dad for the day?"

Tony scoffs. "Please, you know I'm not cut out to be anyone's dad," he says, adjusting the car's air conditioning between sixty-eight and sixty-nine degrees. He hums to himself, dissatisfied, twists the dial again. Seventy degrees. He glances in the rear view mirror at the intern, asks Rhodey, "What do you think?"

Rhodey just raises an eyebrow—his patented Tony, you're being ridiculous look (he's had a lot of practise with it over the years). Tony rolls his eyes and sets the air conditioning at sixty-nine. They drive in companionable silence for a few minutes, then Tony shifts and sets the air conditioning to seventy. Ten minutes pass, then; "Maybe that's too warm," Tony mutters to himself and sets it to sixty-eight.

"Jesus, Tony!" Rhodey says, too loud. There's a snort and a sniff from the back seat. Rhodey looks over his shoulder and sure enough Peter the intern is blinking sleepily back at him. When he looks to Tony he's glaring at him, but Rhodey just shrugs his shoulders and puts on his best _I'm innocent_ face.

"Hey, buddy, how are you doing?" Tony asks, watching Peter in the rear view. As soon as he lays eyes on the kid the glare melts away to be replaced with a gently worried expression. He gets this soft, mushy look in his eyes, and his crow's feet deepen as he smiles gently. Rhodey has never seen that look on his face, but he decides that it's a good look on him. Clearly this kid means a lot to Tony.

"I'm fine, Mister Stark," the kid obviously lies—or tries to lie—he starts coughing and spluttering halfway through.

Tony reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a juice box and a candy bar. Tony is watching the road but Rhodey is watching Tony—that glove compartment is ridiculously well stocked; juice boxes, water bottles, candy bars, animal crackers, protein bars and a Spongebob-themed first aid kit.

Tony holds the juice box and candy bar up between the seats within the kid's reach. With some difficulty Peter extracts first one arm and then the other from under the blanket—Tony must have had him wrapped up real tight—and takes the offered items. He goes to eat the candy bar but Tony hears the wrapper rustle and pipes up, "Juice first," and the kid rolls his eyes a little but he drinks, slurping the juice through the straw.

Tony gives Rhodey the side eye as he reaches for the glove compartment and pulls out a juice box and bag of animal crackers for himself. He looks Tony in the eye, daring him to say anything. " _Tropical Thunder_ , really?" He turns the juice box in his hand so the front (and the cartoon of Thor with luxurious, long, yellow hair and a garish Hawaiian shirt) is facing Tony.

Tony shrugs. "What can I say? The kid's a big fan."

"Mister Stark," Peter whines, half mumbling, his cheeks going red. Tony grins. "Don't embarrass me in front of War Machine, oh my god."

Rhodey chuckles and is about to bite into an animal cracker when Tony says to him, "Juice first."

Rhodey laughs and eats his cracker anyway because he's a rebel. He shakes his head. "Not cut out to be a dad _my ass_."


End file.
